Field of the Art
The disclosure relates to the field of telecommunications, and more particularly to the field of conferenced communications between more than two participants.
Discussion of the State of the Art
In the field of telecommunications, the act of creating or hosting a telephone call with more than two participants (known as a “conference call”) is common. Generally, such a call requires specialized actions on the part of either the host or participants, or both. For example, it is common in the art to require a host to connect to and configure a conference calling service that in turn hosts the call on their behalf. It is also common to require participants to enter specific information such as their name or an access code, to be allowed to participate in the conference call.
Such an approach is inconvenient and potentially error-prone, requiring the dissemination of information or procedures specific to each conference call before its members may participate, and potentially requiring the use of expensive or inconvenient third0party services or products to facilitate the conference function entirely.
Furthermore, with regard to Intern-based communication such as voice over internet protocol (VOIP) communications, conference calling often requires the purchase of a specific product or service to enable conference calling, or to enable specific features that may be desirable (such as video communications), otherwise restricting and limiting the utility provided by a conference call.
What is needed, is a means to provide easy and convenient conferencing of communications regardless of the medium or technologies utilized for communication, that does not require specific actions or information to participate.